


A New Apprentice

by nostalgic_breton_girl



Category: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22820233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgic_breton_girl/pseuds/nostalgic_breton_girl
Summary: How in Oblivion did Talvas Fathyron come to be Neloth's apprentice? Drawing on Skyrim (Dragonborn), Morrowind and a bit of headcanon, I provide my own answer to what is in truth an extremely reasonable question. Oneshot featuring Neloth being obnoxious, Talvas being adorable, and Elynea and Varona being done with everything, as per usual.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	A New Apprentice

**Author's Note:**

> Oh divines so I have just realised that Eldrar Fathyron and Talvas Fathryon do not, in fact, have the same surname. I'm going to forget I never made that discovery. Gods damn it all, how did I write an entire fic based on a reading error? And a fic I'm pretty proud of to boot?

It is unwise, when one is widely distrusted, to seek one’s apprentice among those who are well aware of one’s faults: and it is downright foolish, when one’s former apprentice came to hideous grief at one’s own hands. Master Neloth may have liked to consider himself wise, but when he was about to put out that he wanted a new apprentice, it was his apothecary Elynea who reminded him that nobody on all of Solstheim would agree to the proposition, just three weeks after hearing about what had happened to Ildari. If nothing else, he ought at least to pretend to be in mourning for her.

‘In mourning?’ said he – ‘do people really think me capable of it?’

‘Well, no,’ Elynea admitted: ‘anyway, sir, I don’t know why you think you need a new apprentice, at the present moment. If you’re going to try the same thing you tried on Ildari –’

‘No,’ he mused: ‘no... It would be a fool’s errand. I ought to do more research, before I try it again.’

‘That’s something I never thought I’d hear you say.’

‘Gods, Elynea, what do you take me for?’

She was so occupied with trying not to give her honest answer, that she entirely forgot her original questions, and so the reason Neloth might have wanted a new apprentice remained a mystery. It couldn’t have been too important a reason, at any rate, because Neloth proceeded to forget about the whole business for seven and a half years.

Seven years is not, of course, a long time for a Dunmer. (And especially not a Dunmer like Neloth, who had already lived more than fifty times that.) This meant that the memory of Ildari did not die down quickly, not on Solstheim, anyway, and when Neloth finally remembered his wish to take on a new apprentice, his steward Varona had to inform him that, actually, the people of Raven Rock might still be a little ill-disposed towards him.

‘You might have better luck scouring the mainland,’ she said, ‘or Vvardenfell. Isn’t that where Ildari came from?’

‘I don’t recall,’ Neloth replied vaguely. ‘Perhaps one of you ought to go out to those places and look.’

‘If you would grant me the leave, then – gladly.’

‘No... No, we can’t have that. Nobody else here can make tea.’

‘Elynea’s too old for that sort of journey, Master Neloth. Surely you can respect that.’

‘Hmm.’ Neloth considered it for a moment, before saying: ‘Then find someone willing to go over to Vvardenfell. Or the mainland, if necessary.’

‘As you wish, Master Neloth.’

‘And I’ll have another cup of tea, if you would,’ Neloth called after her as she left the room, before turning his attention to the large red stone on the table before him, and losing himself once again in apparent scholarly thought.

* * *

It was a good couple of months later, when news at last reached Tel Mithryn that their scout – a man from Raven Rock who had been briefed in Neloth’s slightly bizarre standards – had located a would-be apprentice, and brought him back to Solstheim. Varona went out to meet him on his arrival, while Neloth set down the pieces of his latest experiment, and began to wonder what sort of person might have been found. Certainly after so much time it had to be a good candidate. A scholar to rival Ildari, a quick and eager learner, someone whose morals (or common sense) were absent enough to participate in his more questionable, but more exciting, experiments. A laboratory assistant, essentially. He hadn’t quite _appreciated_ Ildari’s presence, but he’d valued it, and more than he would care to admit. Especially after being forced to work solo for seven years.

Varona levitated up to the chambers a few minutes later, and was followed by a young Dunmer in battered mages’ robes. The man looked around the whole room before his eyes settled on Neloth: he was fascinated by the array of books, the various magical and Dwemer artefacts, and apparently the very walls. And while he took his time over doing this, Neloth studied him, this youngster who wanted to work with the greatest of them all, a serious lanky fellow whose eyes, though earnest, were nervous; who wrung his hands as he looked about, and clasped them behind his back, when he at last perceived the magister.

‘This is Talvas Fathyron,’ said Varona: ‘from Balmora.’

‘A... a pleasure to meet you, sir, master,’ Talvas stammered.

‘One would hope so,’ replied Neloth. ‘You wish to become my apprentice, then.’

Talvas could only nod.

‘First, then, I must –’ And Neloth broke off, and looked straight at him. ‘Fathyron?... What is your family? I am sure I knew a Fathyron.’

At this Talvas’s eyes brightened a little, and he said:

‘You knew Eldrar Fathyron, sir. A long time ago... before the turn of the Fourth Era. He was a member of House Telvanni.’

‘So was a good proportion of the population of Morrowind.’

‘He... he was a merchant. In Vivec City. But he moved to Sadrith Mora, and... Well. I know you met him. On at least one occasion.’

‘No doubt I did; I have lived a long time and met a lot of people. More people than I might like, indeed. Was he a magician?’

‘He was something of one. Not among the finest, but – not bad.’

‘I wouldn’t remember him for his magic, then.’

‘...Probably not,’ Talvas admitted.

Neloth smirked a little, a gesture Talvas in his anxiety entirely missed, and added: ‘I presume he was some relation of yours.’

‘My great-grandfather, sir.’

‘Great-grandfather, you say? – Azura, you Fathyrons must breed like nix-hounds.’

And Talvas deflated again, both at the comment, and at Neloth’s apparent growing disinterest. The magister sniffed, and returned to the previous topic of conversation.

‘I hope you are ready to prove yourself. First I must ask what your particular strengths are.’

‘Well, I –’

‘And don’t tell me that you don’t have any.’

‘I do, sir, I am – well, I am very good at Conjuration, and Destruction, if I might say so.’

‘Show me.’

‘You... wouldn’t rather I showed you outside?’

‘If you can’t adapt your skills to any situation, then you are useless to me. You will demonstrate here. And do mind the breakables.’

Talvas’s hands were shaking, but he did his best to look confident, and his spells began to shine in his palms. He reached out, and with a _crack_ there appeared before him a graceful flame atronach. It was not the most challenging of daedric creatures to summon, certainly, but as such atronachs tend to be the smallest, he had decided it would be the safest. He was already starting to regret his choice when he heard Varona say something about the mushroom walls and most particularly the wooden tables. Nevertheless he had a decent control over it, and it remained a short distance above the floor, and a good way from anything it might have threatened.

When he looked back at Neloth, the magister was staring somewhat in disinterest at the atronach, and Talvas decided he’d better move on to his next trick, which he’d planned as something with a bit of panache, and without quite so much thought for the interior decoration. In a flick of his wrist, he had conjured up an ice storm, an impressive and near-opaque gust of cold, that raced forth and consumed the atronach before the latter even had time to react. From the midst of it all there came a plume of steam – a hideous screech – and the ice storm continued unfazed, until Talvas, suddenly realising the potential for disaster, managed to reign it in, just before it also consumed a table, a bookcase and a good scattering of valuable Dwemer pieces. Neloth had made a move towards stopping it himself, and had to pretend not to look a little impressed (and relieved) when Talvas reacted even before he did, though quite whether this was out of skill or sheer luck was impossible to say. He wouldn’t ever admit that he’d been foolish, letting a young mage apprentice demonstrate destruction magic in his tower; he’d feign that he’d known Talvas was capable all along. He had to be, surely? he had been chosen from two months’ worth of potential candidates!

‘Well,’ said Neloth: ‘certainly you have... flair. Now, what do you know of enchanting?’

‘A little,’ said Talvas. ‘I... I understand you are an incomparable enchanter, Master.’

‘I have had several centuries’ practice,’ said Neloth, more modestly than anyone present expected. ‘And indeed, I have of late developed a new means of enchanting staves. I will show you my staff enchanter later, if you are careful and don’t touch anything. It uses a heart stone –’

He saw the confused intrigue in Talvas’s eyes, and abandoning whatever he had been about to say, he said:

‘Do you know about heart stones?’

Behind Talvas, Varona winced visibly, and decided she’d make a discreet escape.

‘No, I... I can’t say I do, Master,’ Talvas replied, suspecting nothing.

‘Ah!’ and Neloth’s eyes were suddenly aglow – some might have said with a scholarly passion, others might have said with a hint of madness. ‘They are the foundation of my work here. It is imperative that you know at least the basics, to start off with, and before anything else. I have some notes you can read through later. But for now I shall content myself with the important points...’

* * *

As the day, and Neloth’s initial instruction, drew to a close, Varona invited Talvas to tea in the steward’s quarters, along with Elynea: the two women usually took their meals together, and well out of Neloth’s way. The magister had been given his own meal, and the remainder had been served around a neat little table, and Varona and Elynea, far from relaxing as per usual, were both looking at Talvas, across from them, in mild concern.

‘You look absolutely bewildered,’ Varona said at last.

‘Oh! no, I’m fine, well – I mean, I _am_ bewildered, but I won’t be, once I’ve taken everything in,’ Talvas assured her, a little too quickly.

Elynea meanwhile smiled without much humour, and asked: ‘What were you told Master Neloth was like, when our scout found you?’

‘I... well, not _quite_ that,’ Talvas replied. ‘I, well, I was told he was... difficult at times, to get along with, I mean – and strange... but... that’s what most scholars are like. Mage-scholars, I mean. I knew already he was old, and one of the greatest mages in existence. I... I was expecting grumpy. I wasn’t told that he was...’ He hesitated over the words, glanced about, as if Neloth might appear over his shoulder: ‘...completely insane.’

At this Elynea and Varona burst out laughing, despite themselves, and Talvas looked between them, more bewildered than before.

‘Do you... do you get used to him?’ he ventured.

‘Well, I’ve worked for him fifty years now,’ said Elynea: ‘and no, you don’t.’

‘Something must be keeping you here,’ he said.

‘Oh! the mushrooms,’ Elynea replied with feeling: ‘they’re my life’s work. I tend Tel Mithryn, and I don’t think I could give it up. Master Neloth’s an accessory I have to live with.’

‘I don’t know _what’s_ keeping me here,’ Varona admitted: ‘except Elynea. Ulves is all right. He’s the cook. I live better here than I did at Raven Rock. But in Raven Rock, I didn’t have that arse demanding tea every fifteen minutes.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve been here ten years now. If there’s anything keeping me here, it’s probably force of habit. Also the fact nobody would volunteer to replace me.’

They both looked at Talvas in an almost motherly sort of fashion, and he was uncertain how to interpret it. In truth, he didn’t know if they were trying to drive him away or not, and he himself didn’t know whether, that being the case, they were on the point of succeeding. Oh! he’d been there scarcely a day, he couldn’t judge just yet. He _really_ wanted to be here. Apprentice to the best, learning sorcery beyond anything he could have imagined! Gods damn it all, he’d _make_ it work...

And he expressed as much to Elynea and Varona, who just looked amused at his eagerness, at his sheer endearing naïvety. But the inhabitants of Tel Mithryn were loath to discuss Neloth for the entirety of the evening, and so the conversation turned to other things; there were questions, so many questions, lingering on the air, but they were for another time, when the rest of the dust had settled, when Talvas had endured a suitable amount of Neloth to be able to speak about him truly, and make a decision as to whether he wanted to stay there for all of the foreseeable future.

* * *

Neloth, of course, considered Talvas’s decision already made, and spent the next few days trying to get him at least up to half of Ildari’s level. The boy was surprisingly prodigious, for his mere forty years, though he was rather clumsy, and though interested and motivated, lost only a bit of his stammer, and could not express himself in the same eloquence that Neloth had come to expect from his apprentices. Well, apprentice. That being said, it was always useful to have an extra pair of hands in the laboratory, if nothing else, and if Talvas could carry out the day-to-day tasks, then he would have infinitely more time to work on more important projects.

Talvas was more exhausted than ever, when on the evening of the fourth day he joined Varona and Elynea for dinner; but he tried his utmost not to seem that way, and there was yet a spark of something positive in his eyes, something which much intrigued the two women, and which had continued to intrigue them, during Talvas’s entire tenure thus far.

‘You look like you need a rest,’ Elynea said, when he entered.

‘Oh! I’m fine,’ he replied, like a refrain. ‘Master Neloth is a challenging master... a challenging teacher... I won’t deny that. But I’m learning so much! I’ve learnt more in four days, than I might have learnt in four months, if I’d gone to the College of Winterhold, for example.’

‘Did you ever consider it?’ asked Varona.

‘The College of Winterhold?’ Talvas laughed. ‘My family said that, if I were to learn magic at all, then that ought to be my choice. None of them has ever been there; and the only people I know who have gone anywhere near Skyrim, have come back very quickly. It’s not a good place for the Dunmer, or so I hear.’

‘The College is pretty isolationist.’

Talvas shrugged. ‘One way or another I... well, I decided it wasn’t for me. I studied on my own, for a bit. But when your man came by offering the post of apprentice... If you must know, I’ve had my heart set on House Telvanni... or what remains of it... for a while now.’

‘Master Neloth _is_ all that remains of House Telvanni, I’ll give you that,’ Varona put in.

‘I don’t know,’ said Talvas seriously: ‘they say there are more... more members, on Vvardenfell somewhere, or... maybe the mainland, I don’t know. Hiding, separate from each other, essentially. Master Neloth doesn’t seem to know anything of them, anyway. He’s certainly the most famous... the most prominent.’

‘You’d heard of him before now, then?’ said Elynea.

‘Well, you said your great-grandfather met him, didn’t you?’ Varona said.

Talvas nodded. ‘I... That’s why I was so keen to take up the offer... I... well, my great-grandfather had limited success within the House, and I... I’m determined to do what he failed to do. That is... win the favour of a Telvanni magister.’

‘So _that’s_ why you’re here!’ said Varona and Elynea, almost in chorus.

Talvas smiled, rather more confidently than either of the two women was expecting. ‘I suppose I get it from him... He... he wanted to be important, within the House. He worked in the Telvanni section of Vivec. He was... well, I mentioned it, I think – he was a merchant. Selling slaves. Something happened – to him, or to the slaves, or both, we’re not quite sure. Anyway, it... it damaged his reputation a bit, and he lost that job. But... well, you can’t be in House Telvanni, without being a bit of a wizard, and... he was a wizard, certainly, not a spectacular one, but a good one. He thought he could go to one of the proper Telvanni strongholds, try to win favour there. He went to Sadrith Mora as the most populated – where all the magisters were represented, if not present – anyway, you probably know it already, but that was Master Neloth’s stronghold. I know he met Master Neloth. Even Master Neloth seems to remember him. I’m starting to doubt it’s for a good reason. I don’t really know what my great-grandfather did there. He had to move not long afterwards, anyway, in the Red Year. The family went to the mainland... We came back to Vvardenfell eventually. Not to Vivec, that’s all gone. Balmora was rebuilt at least. Anyway, that was before I was born.’

He waved a hand, and smiled again, somewhat embarrassed this time. ‘I don’t know if it’s what he would have wanted. But... it’s what _I_ want. I want to be a great wizard, and I think I can do it. Maybe people will laugh at me. But I... I have Telvanni blood in me. And... and I like it here. Or I think I _will_ like it here. I really do. I told you that, on my first day. And I still hold to it.’

‘Give it a month,’ Elynea cut in. ‘No, make that a week.’

But Varona was not quite so sceptical. She studied Talvas a moment, and then said: ‘You know... maybe you will. And good for you, if you do, though I can’t see how that could even be possible. – I know you’re interested, more than interested, in what you’re learning. And...’ She drew in a breath. ‘You know, I think Master Neloth likes you more than he would ever, _ever_ say. There’s something quite unusual in the way he treats you. That is, he treats you less like dirt than he does the rest of us. I saw that with Ildari as well.’

Elynea considered her words, and found herself nodding in agreement, to her surprise. Certainly Talvas wouldn’t be treated _well_ by Master Neloth. Nobody was. But perhaps Master Neloth had seen already the ambitious streak that Talvas had revealed himself to possess – his devotion to scholarship no matter what – two qualities he shared with the master himself, and which surely, surely Neloth couldn’t have failed to have noticed, at least subconsciously. In his own peculiar way, and in just four days, he seemed to have acclimatised himself to his new apprentice, and even warmed to him, if one might call it that.

But Talvas did not hear this: he heard only the final sentence, and with the most painful innocence, he asked: ‘Who is Ildari?’

And the atmosphere was shattered, and Varona and Elynea looked at each other in something akin to horror. Neither of them knew what to say, for the moment; if he didn’t already know – they knew they couldn’t tell the full story, surely not, not yet, not ever –

‘Well, for one thing,’ Elynea said, and sighed heavily: ‘it should rather be: who _was_ Ildari...’

* * *

It was going to be a long evening...

**Author's Note:**

> Eldrar Fathyron is a minor NPC who may be found in Morrowind, in the Telvanni canton of Vivec City. He guards a room full of slaves, and has no backstory beyond that. The continuity of surname, whether by accident or design, prompted this whole fic.
> 
> Within the game, my Nerevarine – and ardent abolitionist – Lunette killed Eldrar Fathyron, to get his key and free the slaves. Within the game I found it difficult to do anything else, as I feared that if I managed to pickpocket him, and left him alive, he might attack the slaves once they were free. My headcanon lets both him and the slaves live.
> 
> It’s stated in-game that Ildari died twenty years previously to the events of Dragonborn. That Talvas should have been Neloth’s apprentice for twenty years seems to me absolutely infeasible, given his own in-game status. The way I’ve altered it makes it just over ten years, but I still feel that’s too long. Ah well, I’m not going to meddle with it any more than I have. Dunmers live for centuries anyway, it’s probably fine.
> 
> I absolutely love the thought of Varona and Elynea fussing over Talvas, and being as two mothers to him. This isn’t a note it’s just a thing that's currently making me die of cute.


End file.
